Mermaids in Winter

“Join the aqua aerobics group,” my friend Alex said. “It’s a blast.”
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds like fun.”

It was summer when I said yes. Warm air, easy optimism. The kind of yes you don’t think too hard about.

I didn’t know it would carry me into winter.

Now I’m in my second winter season. I own a wetsuit jacket. I have stood outside a pool in 38-degree air, waiting to step into water warmed to 83 degrees, trying to convince myself that it’s warmer in the pool.

Alex hates being cold. She made it halfway through the first winter before bowing out.

I understood.

I stayed.

There’s something about being in the water. Aches loosen their grip. Movement becomes possible in ways it isn’t on land. For a while, I thought I had dodged the more stubborn signs of aging. Then one morning, my fingers told a different story—arthritic, insistent. Now Voltaren gel and Biofreeze are stationed throughout the house.

The queen of mermaids, Esther Williams

We are mermaids.

We are a hearty group, though it’s been a while since we’ve all been in the pool together. Our ages span decades. Carol and I are the babies at 67ish, and our instructor, Jane, is 83. At this stage of life, attendance is rarely about discipline. It’s about circumstance.

Hip, knee, and shoulder replacements. Arrhythmias. Cancer. COVID. The flu. Cataract surgery. The steady drumbeat of doctor’s appointments. The suddenness of loss. The need to grandparent.

We are, more often than not, part of one another’s meal-train and feel-better-soon emails.

Absence is understood. Presence is appreciated.

And when we do gather—moving, talking, laughing, crying—we hold each other up in ways that go far beyond the water.

The class itself is what you make of it. You can coast, or you can work. I’ve learned to work. Over time, I’ve noticed changes; subtle at first, then undeniable.

Balance, for one.

I tested that recently on a winter hike. Two streams stood between me and the trail I wanted. The kind of crossing that usually ends with wet boots, bruised knees, and a resigned laugh.

A young man came back across the water to offer his arm. My husband steadied me on the return.

But something was different this time.

I made it across.

Not perfectly. Not independently. But steadily enough that, for once, I didn’t return to the car drenched.

Only my socks needed wringing out.

A quiet victory.

Water aerobics, it turns out, has been teaching me more than I realized.

It has taught me that community is everything, that showing up for one another matters just as much as showing up for ourselves.

It has taught me that effort is non-negotiable. That the body responds to what we ask of it, even now. How it responds is a lesson in itself.

It has taught me that water can carry more than weight—it can hold grief, soften it, give it somewhere to go.

It has taught me to say yes, even when I don’t fully understand what I’m agreeing to.

It has taught me acceptance, of a body that changes, of toes that don’t cooperate, of limits that shift.

And most of all, it has taught me to keep moving.

Somewhere between that first easy yes in summer and these cold winter mornings, the class stopped being just exercise.

It became practice.

Practice for balance.
Practice for resilience.
Practice for staying.

For continuing, even when others step away, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when life narrows and widens in unexpected ways.

We are not all in the pool at the same time anymore.

But we are still, in our own ways, swimming.